


Human Animals (a spring thorki human au prompt collection)

by darklittlestory



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Other, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23250475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklittlestory/pseuds/darklittlestory
Summary: Prompt fills from Twitter. Please see notes for each chapter for warnings, etc.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel), Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	Human Animals (a spring thorki human au prompt collection)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for @horns4loki: "Thor with repressed memories of abuse by Odin and Loki is his therapist (unrelated in this au)"
> 
> warnings: mention of violence, mention but no description of abuse of Thor & Frigga
> 
> Suicide hotline in the US is 800-273-TALK (8255) or Text CONNECT to 741741

The metronome makes low tap, tap, taps in the soft periphery of Thor’s awareness. He watches the scene as if he is a floating, bodiless presence. There is Thor himself, age eight. Frigga, with slightly fuller curves and shorter hair and the chronic purpled shadows beneath her eyes from those days.  
  
Odin, looming over the two of them, his face partly obscured by a squirming nothing in Thor’s memory.

“Thor, tell me what you see now.”

Loki.

His voice is a lifeline, a velvety weighted blanket holding Thor safe with its soothing timbre and even cadence. He never asks or prods Thor in their sessions, the way his other therapists and hypnotists had done. Instead, he calmly directs Thor what to do. It isn’t bossy or overbearing--nothing like Odin.

Like his father.

Thor doesn’t like to call him ‘father’ and when Loki had referred to Odin as his ‘dad’ their first session, he’d had to follow it up by holding Thor’s long hair out of his face while he vomited into Loki’s stainless steel toilet. He hadn’t apologized, hadn’t flinched when he offered Thor a glass of water and he hadn’t asked if Thor felt up to continuing.

He’d just led Thor back to the grey overstuffed chair where patients sit, sat down in his own matching straight-backed chair and told Thor they would explore the incidents that had formed that type of trauma trigger in their memory recovery.

Frigga had assumed after that session that Thor would want to keep looking, that despite Dr. Laufeyson’s reputation and fees, he wouldn’t be a good fit. She’d been surprised that her sunbleached, unkempt son was so taken with this pristine doctor. 

But Thor loves him. 

Dr. Laufeyson (secretly, Loki) is everything Thor and his mom aren't: Impeccably tailored, tasteful, just… well-manicured. He has long hair, but unlike Thor and his mom with long wild wind-mussed loose waves, Loki’s curls are combed into a low, secured bun. Thor sometimes daydreams about seeing it untied and watching the tight curls spring free, like he replays the memory of Loki’s cool silk hands on his nape as he comforted Thor the first day they’d met.

Now, Loki calls him back with a steady, grounding countdown. He tells Thor to wake and he comes out of his memory. 

“Did I tell you about it this time? Did I see it?”

“Relax, Thor. Remember to ease yourself back. Where is your breathing?”

Thor indicates an area just below his throat, and closes his eyes, listening as Loki talks him through longer and longer breathing counts.  
  
“And where is your breath now?”

“It’s the full range.”

“Very good. Tell me what you remember from that day. Detail it for me.”

Thor starts recounting the story of the day he was slowly remembering. Every session he recovers more. He sees more of Odin’s face. The repetition of it is soothing, now, after battling through the first tellings with Loki. 

He remembers most of it, and he’s squared with himself that he most likely saved their lives. He didn’t see the eye he’d stabbed, but today he had seen blood trickling down his father’s face behind the nothing-place in his vision. He had heard Odin’s garbled scream today.

He tells Loki, who smiles at him today with something like pride. Thor warms under the expression. This is safety. This is where he will heal.


End file.
